Latent
by EponymousAnonymous
Summary: Kaidan Sawyer has never been a normal person, but when he finally does find somewhere he fits in, he's rejected. Can he do what is required of him to find a way home? And will he ever know why he was banished in the first place? Rated T for occasional violence and mild swearing
1. Prologue

_A bridge. The large, looming sort, perfect for sightseeing, and even more so for suicide._

He stood at the parapet, his eyes cast downward, surveying the long drop before him. The last ember-like shards of daylight flickered playfully in his copper eyes, and, had this been a month ago, he would have revelled in it.

Now, however, sharp tears ground against the back of the aforementioned spheres, the prolonged exposure to which made them feel like they were encased in sandpaper.

_Right now, _he thought bitterly, _my eyes are the least of my worries._

Well, to be honest, that wasn't entirely true. They were part of the reason why he was here in the first place. Another part of this reason waved lazily in the dying breeze, the sunset's colours accenting its own, making its already unusual pigmentation appear dark and almost brooding.

He sighed, and blew a lock of deep burgundy hair out of his eyes. _Why red? I mean, come on, seriously? Can't demons have normal hair like everyone else?_ He groaned quietly to himself, adjusting his weight onto one foot. Feeling numbness recede from the other, he quickly glanced down to ensure that everything was still in place. Reassuringly enough, his leg still appeared normal, his thin and fraying grey tracksuit bottoms not betraying the metal plating that smothered yet another part of his reason for being here.

Shutting his eyes off to the world, he sank back into his thoughts for a moment, which he soon cast in the direction of his mother. Her face, mostly. Sure, he could recall her entire shape as clear as the daylight, but that was now fading, and he figured that her face was all that mattered now.

A wry grimace felt its way across his features at the thought. After these fleeting moments, he might never see her again, not even in his thoughts. He didn't know if such things existed where he was headed.

With bated breath, he placed his hands on the metal railing that edged the bridge, and near-effortlessly pulled his weight upwards, until his non-ironclad foot could be placed in between them. Following his body's momentum, his abnormally-covered shin clanged against the steelwork, immediately raising a wince from him as the abrupt noise tore through his silence.

Were it a month ago, he couldn't have cared less, but now, he didn't want to be interrupted, and any disturbance was too much. He needed to steady his thoughts, clear his head…

… and jump.

He froze for a few seconds, expecting a wave of fear to swell, searing its way into him, making him jolt out of his melancholy , lucid state of being. When no such wave made itself apparent, he rolled his eyes, and scoffed quietly to himself. _Yeah, immune to fear. How could I forget?_

Remarkably, he'd found it hard to realise that fear had no home in him, mostly because his family, upbringing and culture had drilled it into every aspect of his life; fear of rejection, fear of being different, fear of being mistaken…

As much as he had remained unwise to it until a month ago, he had been subjected to these fears throughout his life. Well, the life he knew, anyway. A small flame of hope lit up inside him as he realised that maybe, just maybe, things could change now, and that wouldn't have to be the case…

He shook the notion from his head, warning himself to be pessimistic. _There's more chance there'll be nothing there, or nothing there that changes. If there even is a 'there'…_

His doubts were understandable. Any information he'd furnished himself with was sketchy, at best. Half-glances at pseudo-medieval bestiaries in any library that hadn't kicked him out for disrupting the peace, or was blatantly observing everything he did, were the best he got. He inwardly growled a little. There was little proof of any of this, but, then again, there was an equal amount of evidence to the contrary. The only rock-solid proof of anything that he knew was the look of fear in people's eyes when he… after he…

His frustration becoming verbalised, he snarled, and gripped his hand round the metal railing, causing it to squeak and warp under the pressure. _Enough._ He thought to himself. _End this now. No matter what happens, it can't exactly be worse, can it?_ He flinched as retaliatory thoughts threw images of unnameable monsters and gore across his mind. Sighing, he scolded himself for faking a response, and leant forward on the railing, the now weakened section of it groaning in stressed complaint. _Unnameable monsters and gore… hmph! They haven't met me, have they? Perhaps it's time for an introduction._

The trace of a smirk was visible on his now cold features. The glowing fire in his eyes was the icy kind; he'd banished his emotions, and that was clear to see, particularly to him. And he liked it. With a final, almost wistful glance, he surveyed his surroundings, his gaze catching on a few idle walkers, bags of shopping slowly pulling their shoulders towards the floor, before moving onto a small, scruffy dog that was gaining more and more distance between itself and its distressed owner, lead trailing uselessly behind it, before finally settling on the steelwork between his hands. He adjusted his grip slightly, and leant back, emptying his chest of air, before throwing himself forward, and plunging downwards into the abyss below.


	2. Warm Welcome

Repetitive clunking and rattling trickled through Kaidan's silence, making him reflexively put his hand to his ear to remove the offending noise. When he found nothing more than his ear was present, he began to regain feeling in the rest of his body, and discovered that almost every part of him – including parts he didn't know he had – were aching. Badly.

He groaned, and rolled onto his back, letting his eyes – which were among the achiest parts of him – sag open. He found that his irises quickly adapted to the gloom, unlike the usual thirty-second wait just to see in front of his face. Not discerning any shapes or figures in the murk, he instead turned his attention to his other senses.

Some kind of cobblestone was hard and cold against his shoulder blades, and he could feel a line of the same temperature run down his vertebrae where they made contact with the floor. He turned the palm of his hands to the surface, and he felt what he assumed to be rain to be on its face. He ran his fingers through it, noting how it seemed slightly thicker than water normally is. He pondered this for a while.

As his inevitable hypothesis came to him, he let out a panicked yell and jumped to his feet. Also, the back of his mind noted, more ably than normal, considering his… bipedal issues. He wrestled his thoughts back into their usual post of being ignored, and glanced around himself nervously, straining to see everything – anything – in this darkness. All too ominously, laughter came from it.

'So, this is our visitor?' judging from the change in direction of the voice, it was circling Kaidan, and an agitated growl rumbled in his throat. Again, to his growing annoyance, the voice chuckled. Its voice was higher-pitched than the usual ominous-speaker-in-the-dark, implying that he was the apprentice of the outfit, but it perturbed him nonetheless. He whirled to try and face the voice's owner, but to no apparent avail.

'You haven't learnt to see in the dark, have you? How disappointing.' Despite the negative effect it had on his ability to see, Kaidan narrowed his eyes. People said many things about him, but _disappointing_ was not one of them. Something strange yet familiar stirred in his gut.

'Uh-uh-uh. Don't get ahead of yourself, Kaidan.' The voice chided, and Kaidan flinched. How did they know his name? And how did they know he had that feeling-?

'It's a talent of mine.' _Shit. Mind reader._

'Well done, Kaidan.' Slow sarcastic clapping broke through the darkness, making Kaidan jump. The voice re-used its trademark laugh.

'Oh dear, getting jumpy now, are we? I can see why I was sent to double-check to see if it was really you.'

'What?' Kaidan was totally nonplussed. Why would someone impersonate him? And check what? The voice snorted self-indulgently.

'Oh, I love it when they get amnesia. It's so fun to watch them squirm.' Finally, Kaidan's anger let itself show, and he spat indignantly.

'Make me.' Unbeknownst to him, his hands were clenched into fists, and his breathing was harsher.

'Ah, so anger is your trigger. Very well, then. I'll make you squirm.'

An instant later, Kaidan doubled over, clutching his head in agony. Something – or someone – was in his head, and was leaving it in violent disarray. He convulsed as an arc of pain shot down his spine, leaving his finger-ends feeling like they were on fire. He tried to yell, only to find out that he no longer had control over his voice box. Whatever or whoever this thing was had locked him out of controlling his own body, while somehow still leaving him inside to feel everything they did to it. As if recognising his desire to make a noise, Kaidan could feel his chest compress as air was squeezed from his lungs, and up into his throat, where the wheeze was twisted into a kind of whimpering howl.

He could hear the voice inside him now, muttering to itself as it went through his thoughts. At one point, it seemed to almost find what it was looking for, as the pain caused by all his muscles jamming in place subsided, like a mugger restraining a victim sagging with relief when they find a set of car keys in their pocket; after all, he was being robbed of his own body. Sure enough, the voice – whether externally or internally, he couldn't tell now – chortled in triumph, before sending a ricochet of searing heat through Kaidan's muscles, making him wish he would melt rather than endure this any further. He was being tortured in his own head, and his mind screamed in silent agony as he was pushed further out of control. Mentally thrashing around for purchase, his metaphorical fingers grazed the edge of a precipice, and he hauled his head over it, and bellowed into its depths.

'GET OUT!' both he and the voice were shocked by his yell, as the presence seemed to be jolted out of Kaidan in surprise. Gasping and panting in relief, he turned onto his front and lifted himself onto his hands and knees, his head sagging against the floor. Definitely from outside his body now, the voice spoke again.

'Hmm, maybe you are who you were supposed to be.'

'W-were?' Kaidan gagged, realising that having someone else in control of your diaphragm and oesophagus makes for extremely unpleasant bouts of nausea. The voice sighed long-sufferingly.

'It's a figure of speech, moron. Some demons just don't have a brain…' The voice's mutterings caught Kaidan's attention.

'Demon?!' Before he could say anything else, he was overcome by the sickened sensation, and he retched hard, throwing up onto the cobblestones between his hands.

'Oh, what a nice surprise,' the voice quipped, utterly deadpan, 'and I was beginning to think you had no gifts for me.'

'I don't even know who you are.' Kaidan's voice thinned to a hoarse cough at the end of his sentence, his guts weakened from their recent excursion.

'Afterlife isn't fair, Kaidan.'

'Afterlife?!' he parroted, startled by the voice's nonchalant use of the word, his discomfort suddenly forgotten.

'Yes. Afterlife. I do hope you don't get into a habit of mimicking everything I say, or I may have to remove your larynx. And before you ask, no, you're not dead. Not in our sense, anyway.'

'Our sense…?' Not much of the information was sinking in.

'I was serious about removing your voice-box, Kaidan,' the voice chipped in a worryingly singsong manner, 'Don't make me waste good. I'm sure you'll be able to put that throat of yours to good use once again.'

'Once ag- Say what?' Kaidan corrected himself, not doubting the voice's ability or sincerity. His voice was little more than a whisper, as he was still trying to process the word 'demon'. The voice chuckled.

'Good boy. Make sure you don't need to correct yourself next time.' The voice was overly sweet, and almost enough to make Kaidan vomit again.

'Who are you?' Kaidan demanded, the groggy feeling of old pain beginning to subside, being replaced by the acute sensation of irritation.

'I am no one of importance. Also, if we have our way, neither will you be.'

'Huh?'

'Oh, Kaidan, you really do remember nothing! And from such a promising young talent to this… it's a pity.' The voice seemed almost wistful, and Kaidan's skin twitched in ire. Air hissed through his clenched teeth as he tried to gain some foothold in this increasingly one-sided conversation.

'What do you know about me?'

'Many things, my lad. But I'm not the only one.' Kaidan sighed.

'I don't doubt that. Tell me what you know.' Kaidan was trying to smother his intentions by deliberately keeping his mind blank, but the not-so-unnoticeable wrenching feeling in the base of his gut kept him informed of what he was likely to do.

'Trying to block me, are you? A good plan - but I can feel what you're not thinking just as much as what you are.' Kaidan was jolted out of his concentration by confusion.

'What? That can't be right.'

'It isn't,' the voice admitted, 'but now your guard's down.' A stinging became apparent down Kaidan's side – the kind that was placed there by the voice. Rather than submitting to the pain, the insistent sensation in his core somehow kept his mind sharp, and Kaidan was grateful for this, as being aware, he figured, would be important when trying to get out of here. Wherever here was…

'Do you have something constructive to do with your time, or are you just so bored that you have to take it out on me?' Kaidan asked, unable to keep resentment from his voice. The voice chuckled again.

'This is constructive. It's a character-building exercise.' Kaidan growled at the blackness in front of him.

'For you or for me, _scumbag_?' The voice stalled, and sounded almost offended in its reply.

'…scumbag? I'm not the bad guy here, Kaidan.' Kaidan snarled and hunched over, as if he was able to know where his opponent was, and thus prepare for a chance to get his own back.

'If you're not, who is?!' Unmistakeable venom laced his voice, and his anger grew and flexed itself like some feline predator readying to chase after a bird.

What felt like several minutes passed, and still no reply came from the voice. Kaidan wondered if he'd just lost his hearing instead, until a sigh came from the darkness, and then, suddenly, the lights came on.

A kind of fire-powered spotlight focused its beams through a series of mirrors, before aiming it directly at Kaidan's face. He yelped in pain and covered his eyes with one hand, barely able to open them at all in this intense light. Like before, he couldn't observe his surroundings, but he could observe figures obscuring the otherwise untainted sheet of searing white.

To one side, a tall, thin and cloaked person stood – at least, Kaidan assumed it was a person – whose clothing hung only an inch or so above the floor. Beside him, a figure that was beyond tall, at a height Kaidan estimated to be somewhere near at least six and a half feet, was standing sideways, a curious shield-like contraption held in its right hand. Kaidan assumed that, together, these were the two responsible for his torture. Not wanting to be put off by this change of events, he reiterated his question, and continued to seethe.

'Who is the bad guy here?!' The shield-bearing figure approached, raising its load until their elbow was bent at ninety degrees. As they stepped closer, Kaidan could determine the outline of short, slicked-back hair and what appeared to be armour of some kind coating the rest of their body. Eventually, the figure was close enough for Kaidan to actually _see _them rather than be aware of their presence.

The figure was male, as was obvious in the muscled appearance the armour gave, as well as the length and styling of his sandy-blonde hair. His eyes were brown, like chocolate, and the way he stood, feet apart and shoulders back, contrasted the appearance of entitled youth on his face. Slowly, the figure raised its weapon – the blades mounted around its edge guaranteed what its purpose – and spoke.

'You are.' Before Kaidan could lash out, he felt a thump echo through his skull, and was vaguely aware of the cool liquid on the cobblestones as he slumped to the floor.


	3. New Faces

Light skipped cheerily off of the pavement, and a pair of thigh-high black laced boots did the same as a thinly-muscled girl of middling height trotted to her destination. Her shock of striking red hair, which was punctuated by stripes of shiny black, bounced with enthusiasm as she halted abruptly at a crossroads, waiting to pass. As she stood in eager silence, her phone buzzed for the third time in five minutes, causing her to sigh, rolling her turquoise eyes, before reaching into the pocket of her skinny jeans.

'I'm coming, okay? I haven't even changed streets since you last called me!' A deep, masculine voice responded to her excitedly.

'Then hurry up!' As abruptly as he'd called, he'd hung up, and she returned her phone to her pocket with a sigh. He was always impatient, but particularly when it came to something that he thought might surprise her. She grinned to herself, and picked up the pace.

Rounding the corner and heading onto a familiar terrace, she observed the light glint off of shop windows, and reflexively narrowed her eyes to the glare. She travelled down this road at least three times a week, and she could tell how used to her surroundings she was by the fact that she could be lost in deep thought and still take a preparatory step sideways to avoid a manhole cover she couldn't even see. The implication brought a smile to her lips – here, she felt safe. For her, there was nowhere else that made her feel this way – well, there was one, but that was a tale for another time. At least, that's what she told herself failingly as she began to reminisce anyway.

A few minutes later, she was faced with an old wooden door, coated in weathered green paint that bore a few gouges in its surface – it really needed repainting, but the girl knew that it would never get done: her boyfriend inevitably had "something better to do". Opening the door with a key that was always in her pocket, she strode into the hallway, and looked up the stairs, where small beams of light filtered through a misted glass doorway.

'Klaus! Hellooooooo!' There was some clattering, and then a brown-eyed face answered her call in a crack between the door and its frame, chocolate hair plastered to his forehead by sweat. He was frowning, and clearly worried.

'Fay, get up here, he's awake!' Before Faith could ascertain who Klaus had meant, he'd flown sideways and away from her line of sight, followed closely by a blur of dark grey and burgundy, and impacted the wall with a grunt.

Thoughtlessly, and taking the steps three at a time, Faith bounded up the stairs and barrelled through the door, looking anxiously to where her boyfriend had flown. When her eyes fell upon him, she would have laughed, were the situation not exempt from the reaches of humour. He was crumpled into the corner, with papers and a pot plant scattered over his head and shoulders, looking very dazed. At his chest was a male, of smaller build than Klaus, robed in a long grey trenchcoat and bearing a head of matted dark red hair, growling and slamming his fists into the broad boy's gut in quick succession.

Faith looked again to her boyfriend's face, which was now free of the woozy blankness he had previously worn, and was instead painted with mild amusement, feeling only mild discomfort in being pounded in this way. He shrugged at the red-haired girl, and she sighed in relief.

'I take it you won't be needing my help, then?' Klaus chuckled, and grasped the interloper's head in one hand, pushing him away, leaving him flailing helplessly.

'I guess not.' Faith laughed, and her laughter brought an irate growl from the struggling frame of a boy, who writhed in Klaus' grip. She stopped laughing, and approached, bending over and prodding him hard between the shoulder-blades. The boy recoiled, and Klaus released his head, and he collapsed onto the floor, growling and panting with some unspeakable anger.

'So, who might this be?' The incensed addressee whirled into a low crouch, glaring at Faith with burning copper eyes.

'You should already know that, you little-' Before he could cuss, Klaus' hand was once again clamped firmly over the boy's face, and his obscenities were muffled.

'I think he thinks we kidnapped him.' Faith contemplated this for a moment, then cocked her head at the brown-eyed boy who held the writhing streak of sinew in place.

'That would make sense, I suppose. Did you kidnap him?' Klaus gasped, and put his spare hand to his chest in mock-hurt.

'How lowly you think of me, Miss Pryke! You and I both know that this little runt would fetch a mere pittance on the black market.' This elicited more grunting and muffled shouts from their supposed captive, and Faith chuckled.

'That is a fair point. I think we should turn him loose, no?' Klaus frowned concernedly, dropping the pretence.

'I don't think that's a good idea. He did just deck me; who knows what he could do to unassuming citizens?' Faith rolled her eyes.

'Oh sure, the citizens are only a fraction of the strength of the mighty Klaus Clarke! I bet the entire Capital's law enforcement division would have a hard time keeping up.' Klaus grinned, and decided to resume his act of playing the clown.

'You got that right, babe.' Klaus flirted, only just restraining the urge to wink. His girlfriend scoffed, and crossed her arms.

'Just let him go, Klaus. If he's any trouble, I'll deal with him.' Eventually, he relented, and loosed the grip he held on his captive. The burgundy-haired boy shot to his feet, and scowled at Faith.

'There is no dealing here. You are going to tell me where I am and why I'm here, before I feel the need to beat it out of you.' He snarled, doing a very good impersonation of an irate canid. Regretting letting the runt go in the first place, Klaus growled, and held a fist up. Faith waved him into stillness.

'You're in 179 Fawkley Street, which is in the Capital's 8th District. We have no idea why you're here, or how you got here. Is that enough for you?' The boy glanced from Faith to Klaus a few times, and licked his lips tentatively.

'So, you're not…' he cleared his throat, unsure of how to proceed, 'You're not demons?' For some time, it appeared that the proprietors of 179 Fawkley Street were stunned, and they opened and shut their mouths repeatedly, searching for a response to portray their bafflement. After what must have been around a minute of gobsmacked silence, Klaus spoke.

'…how in Hell's name do you know about demons?'

* * *

><p>'So… you jumped off a bridge, and wound up in the afterlife, then got knocked out, and woke up in my boyfriend's spare room?' Faith recited slowly, not entirely sure if she was grasping Kaidan's explanation or not.<p>

'Yup, that's about the shape of it.' The aforementioned lad nodded, crossing his legs absent-mindedly as he leant against the edge of a warmly-varnished table. Across from him, the red-haired girl fingered her black and purple striped mug, and sipped from it gingerly, her face creased with a slight frown. Beside her, her overly-tall boyfriend held his chin in a studious gesture of contemplation.

'How come dying gets you _to_ the netherworld, but merely being knocked out gets you back? I thought that only death could allow you to cross the veil.' Kaidan shrugged.

'I dunno. They didn't seem very happy to see me, so maybe that's it.' Faith chuckled.

'Demons are never happy, Kaidan. Trust me, that had nothing to do with it.' The copper-eyed boy looked at the laminate floor for a moment, then returned his gaze to the two opposite him.

'How do you know so much about demons?' Faith opened her mouth to speak, and was thrown a severe glance by her boyfriend.

'…how much is it safe to tell him, Fay?' Faith's features clouded with thought momentarily, but she soon returned to her normal, assured self.

'All of it. He's on our side, Klaus; we can't just leave him in the dark. Besides,' she added, 'he might be one of us.' Curiosity well and truly captured, Kaidan leant forward, gripping the sides of the table in eagerness. Klaus sighed, took a deep breath, and began the explanation.

'We're Hybrids. That is, the result of interbreeding between angels and demons.' He let his statement sit in the air, allowing Kaidan time to digest the information. The sinewy boy attempted to voice his understanding.

'So… you aren't human.' Faith nodded encouragingly, and took over.

'That's right. We were born when in the days of The Insurrection, where a group of angels and demons revolted against the eon-old axiom of hate between our species.' Kaidan frowned.

'You mean… had sex?' Klaus rolled his eyes.

'Among other things. The main impact was the political ties made during those few years – they laid the foundations for an entirely united planet, which would have made everything far simpler, all things considered.' Faith nodded understandingly, and Kaidan stood free of the table, clearly a little more at ease in this subject.

'I take it that nothing was finalised?'

'You can say that again.' Faith retorted, resentment flickering in her amber eyes. 'The instigators of the so called "shameful disobedience" were annihilated, and it was business as usual after that.' Kaidan sighed.

'So demons hold grudges, huh?' Klaus laughed wryly.

'It wasn't just the demons, kiddo – angels are known for being stuck up.' He retreated into his thoughts for an instant, then returned from them scowling, his voice a low growl, 'But yeah, the demons did the punishing.' Faith nodded solemnly in acknowledgement, and Kaidan cocked his head.

'What did they do?' Silence sat over the three for a short while.

'…it's best you never find out.' Faith conceded, gazing morosely into her mug. Stony-faced, Klaus sighed, and gently laid a comforting hand on his girlfriend's shoulder. Kaidan observed, and started to realise the extent of the atrocity wreaked upon his newfound friends in days past. Wishing he'd not brought up the subject, he decided he had to wade through it, aiming for what he assumed was the other side.

'Please… I'd like to know.' Faith's temper sheared in two.

'The Overlord set his little _pet_ on our families, burned our houses and livelihoods to the ground, and had the damned nerve to tell us we were in the wrong!' As small sobs broke from her throat, Klaus wrapped his large arms around her, pulling her close. Kaidan stammered.

'I-I'm sorry.' Klaus smiled weakly, attempting to accommodate the cause of his companion's tears.

'It's not your fault, Kaidan. After all,' he forced laughter, 'you weren't the unholy monster that tore through our lives, were you?' Kaidan gave a small shake of his head, and clasped his hands around each other nervously.

'So… why are you here?' Klaus' face lifted a little, and started to rub Faith's back.

'The human world was the only neutral ground we had.'

'Ah, I see.' Kaidan mused, shifting his weight as Faith nuzzled into Klaus' shoulder, 'So, I take it you call this place home?' Klaus nodded.

'Even if we wanted to get to either the netherworld or Celestia, we wouldn't be allowed in. I mean, we're technically fugitives; we're not supposed to exist. Angels and demons do not mix in any way, and most decidedly not in our way.' Klaus struck upon a change of thread, and followed it, 'But what about you, Kaidan? Do you have any idea how you got caught up in… whatever you're caught up in?' The blood-haired boy shrugged.

'None at all. I don't even know what I'm caught up in.' The burly figure across from him grinned suddenly, as if he'd struck upon an idea.

'Well then, perhaps we should change that.' If he had the ability to, Kaidan would have perked his ears up to match his wide-eyed curiosity.

'How much do you know?' Releasing his girlfriend from his grasp, Klaus slipped momentarily out of the room, before returning with a large black folder, with red embossing in the shape of a kind of floral design adorning its corners. He passed it to Kaidan.

'I know as much as is in here. It's a kind of bestiary that we compiled for reference.' Intruigued, Kaidan fingered its worn edges, before flipping the folder open, and glancing at what it held within. In it were photos and sketches of creatures of varying dimensions Kaidan seemed to half recognize from what little research he did before his jump. He noted their names, and snapped the object shut for a second, and looked up at his new friend.

'How much of this should I memorize?' Klaus smirked, and kind of mischievous sadism flashing across his brown eyes. He left the room again, and returned soon after with a stack of identical folders that reached from his outstretched hands to his chin. Kaidan examined the heap, and gulped.

'All of it.'


	4. Flames and Foxes

The three figures walked abreast, their heights ascending from left to right like uneven stairs in the deluge. In the center, the middle figure's long dirty trenchcoat slapped against the back of his trainers, its hem made sodden by the rain bouncing off of the pavement. His vision blurred as yet more rain flew into his eyes, due to his boot-wearing companion, the shortest of the three, stepping sideways to avoid a drain cover. He rubbed his eyes, and jabbed her in the arm.

'Can't you keep your water to yourself?' His companion laughed, and punched his shoulder in jest.

'I'm sure you can cope.' The middle figure scowled.

'Hmph! What if it puts my hair out?' he demanded drolly, fully aware that his companion's hair was more vivid than his.

'It might dampen your temper.' On the far right, the tallest figure interjected, his chocolate-brown eyes alight with humour.

'Hey!'

'He does have a point, Kade.' The addressed centre figure thought for a moment, then smirked, and seized the opportunity to get his own back. He leant in towards Faith's ear, and whispered conspiratorially, just loud enough to be audible to all present.

'I heard he always has one when you're around.' Faith gasped.

'KAIDAN!' The accused laughed, and took a step backwards as his female companion aimed another punch at his shoulder, which instead now swept futilely through the air.

'Kaidan…' the tallest of the three warned, the body of his humour now notably absent.

'Aww, c'mon Santa Klaus, what harm am I doing?' Kaidan asked, youthful glee burnishing his features.

'It's not you that'll be doing harm.' Klaus said simply, his eyes darkening as another storm cloud washed overhead.

'Oh my, I think I'm terrified.' Kaidan replied, deadpan.

'Boys!' Faith scolded, clipping the both of them on the shoulder, 'Grow up!' In that instant, any antagonism between them was clearly forgotten, as the two boys looked at each other, then at Faith, and back again. Just to be sure, Klaus took a step towards her, and held one hand level with the top of her head, measuring her height, and brought it between him and Kaidan, and noted how it only came three-quarters of the way up his chest, and to Kaidan's chin. He cocked his head to one side, his hair flopping over his forehead, and they both smirked mischievously.

'I think it's you that needs to grow up, Fay.' To emphasise his point, Klaus gestured from his height to hers several times, causing a pert chuckle from the burgundy-haired lad beside him. Faith scowled at Klaus, making him laugh in triumph.

'Don't make me slap you again, Klaus.' Kaidan took a preparatory step back, just in case Klaus said what Kaidan thought he was going to.

'You'd have to be able to reach first, babe.' Klaus stayed true to form, and Kaidan was thankful for his pre-emptive manoeuvre, as otherwise he would have been between an enraged Hybrid and her target, which was not a good place to be. Faith launched herself at Klaus, and squealed as he caught her, and threw her over his shoulder. Kaidan chuckled, mostly to himself, and started walking again.

'Come rain or shine, eh, you two?' he teased over his shoulder. To his alarm, Kaidan discovered that Klaus had set Faith back down again, and they now both intended to channel their juvenile behaviour in his direction. He yelped, and took off down the pavement, trying to outrun the two chasing him.

To Kaidan's surprise, it was not the constant looking over his shoulder that made him stumble. Well, not exactly. The not noticing those in front of him was a factor, but it's not like he could have stopped anyway in this weather. He recognised the shape and form of the things in front of him, but he immediately disregarded them, reasoning that there was no need for demons to be here, let alone with monsters. However, he realised he was mistaken when he piled headlong into a Zombie, dislodging its arm in the process. He skidded to a halt, and turned to face the gaggle of demons who were now glaring at him. The incited Zombie bent to pick up and reattach its arm, and then used it to point accusingly at Kaidan. Or, more specifically, his hair.

'He's the one. Get him!' In a sudden moment of dissolution, Kaidan's scalp retreated down the back of his neck, and he stepped back instinctively. The crowd of demons formed an arc five bodies thick, and began to close in on him. Before he elected what to do, a yell from behind the gaggle of would-be attackers made them turn in alarm. Before they knew how to react, a third of them were ploughed over as Klaus barrelled through them, scattering them in his wake like a steam liner. Behind him, Faith had unsheathed a switchblade from somewhere about her person, and was lunging at the first demons she could get her hands on. As she plunged her knife wrist-deep into a Sludge's skull, she threw an anxious glance in Klaus' direction, who was in the process of standing up, a pair of unconscious demons sprawled across his back.

'Dammit! Why do I have to be unarmed?!' he raged, throwing the limp body of a Nekomata into the crowd, knocking several demons over backwards. Faith turned to Kaidan, who was standing there, watching the distraction.

'Kaidan, get out of here! We'll handle these, and then go and get some weapons in case more turn up. Run!' Kaidan locked eyes with Faith, but was quickly jolted out of eye-contact as an Orc threw itself at him, sword trailing downwards in a vicious curve. He sidestepped, and kicked the hilt of the sword as it went downwards, sending it back upwards, and into the Orc's face. Turning away as the pained squeal came from his attacker, Kaidan nodded at Faith, who nodded in return, and continued fighting. Kaidan took a final look over his shoulder, counted the number of demons advancing towards him, and took off down the pavement, his gunmetal-grey trenchcoat appearing to be nothing more than a dancing shadow in the ever-advancing twilight.

* * *

><p>Darkness clung to Kaidan's clothes like slime, and he panted as he rounded the end of a building and slammed his back into the wall, waiting for his follower to pass the corner. As it did so, he gripped its face by a feline ear and slammed its head hard into the brickwork. As the Catsaber slumped to the floor, he dragged much-needed air back into his lungs, blessing the existence of an atmosphere. His deprived chest heaving, he glanced back to from where he'd fled, and his eyes caught on the rabble that still pursued him. Too tired to run further, he groaned to himself, and hid round the building's edge, hoping they hadn't seen him.<p>

Being sadly proven wrong, Kaidan was soon surrounded again, and he turned on the spot, taking quick note of which species that had found him fastest, and those who tired the least, saving the information to the recesses of his brain in case it was needed later. Every muscle in his body aching from his effort thus far, he stood panting for a while, unable to fight. After a few inexorably slow moments, he was juddered out of his inertia.

From behind him, a roar broke, making him turn instantly. About a hundred yards away, a girl, appearing to be around his age, turned and slowed, facing towards him and his assailants. The bike she rode was clearly not hers, as her feet only just scraped the floor as she turned, but the look of determination on her face showed that right now, she didn't care. A wild mass of black curls flopped to the middle of her back as she drew to a stop, before hunkering over the motorcycle's sizeable fuel tank and revving loudly, the back wheel pungently burning rubber, slipping from side to side, urging her to release the pent up power.

After a few moments, and when everyone was definitely paying attention, she granted its wish, and shot forwards with a loud squealing from her tyres. Lifting her feet from the floor, and balancing her weight through her shoulders, she let go of the handlebars, and put her hands to her back. Hidden under the mass of obsidian hair was a pair of swords, the hilts of which bore intricacies that Kaidan couldn't make out from this distance.

The bike still hurtling forward, she drew the pair of weapons, and the metallic unsheathing noise rung through the air like a gavel sounding a court to order. As she approached the rabble, she opened her arms wide and lowered them, her blades running through the distance between them and her at about waist height, making Kaidan's eyes widen with alarm. Not being able to run, he instead ducked, outthinking those surrounding him, who were quickly halved by the girl's motorised rush of steel. As she passed overhead, he looked up to the girl's swords, and noted, to his curiosity, that he'd made a transgression: the blades were in fact carved delicately from crystal, as black as her hair, and the fire-ringed abysses that were her eyes. Kaidan took a split-second to examine these spheres, and noted that they widened, almost as if in dawning realisation, but his slowed-time instant ended before he could work out why.

About a second later, the reason for the girl's alarm became apparent. The alley Kaidan and his opponents had found their way into was, as always seemed to be the case, a dead end, and the girl on the motorbike had realised this a little too late. In an effort to brake faster, she threw the bike sideways, and put her foot to the tarmac as yet more smoke erupted from the back wheel. In spite of her attempt, however, inevitable momentum threw the bike onto its side, taking its rider with it. No longer being able to see the black-haired girl, Kaidan winced in sympathy as pained grunting from the force of the impact was followed in quick succession by thumping and crashing as the bike et al slid into a dumpster, squishing its rider between the two.

A few painfully still moments crawled by, and slowly Kaidan edged towards the wreckage, not yet daring to observe what remained of the girl. Removing his need to, the rider, hidden partly under the bin and partly under what was left of 'her' bike, raised a hand shakily, and panted.

'…I'm okay!' Immediately feeling no unease with the girl – after all, being trapped under a motorcycle does tend to make you less deadly – Kaidan half-chuckled, and peered around the wrecked frame at her.

'You sure about that?' the girl locked eyes with him, and narrowed them momentarily, before replying, her mouth a taught, emotionally un-telling line.

'No.' As if accepting her response in some backward fashion, Kaidan shook his head, and laughed.

'I think that's a wise statement, judging from your position.' He proffered his right hand to help her up, 'Hand?' The girl looked from Kaidan's hand to his face, and the side of her mouth twitched into a sardonic grin.

'I do believe it is, yes.' Before Kaidan could roll his eyes, his attention was drawn by the creak of metal as the girl set about levering the remains of the motorcycle off herself. She heaved, but her position made the manoeuvre difficult, and Kaidan sighed, gripping the underside of the seat and hauling it off in what he considered to be a rather impressive action. Without thanks, the girl stood up, and brushed herself off, before stooping over to retrieve and sheathe her swords.

'Sooo…' Kaidan began vaguely, attempting poorly to make small-talk, 'what brings you to these parts?' Standing up again, and turning, fixing him with a deadpan glare, the girl flicked a piece of decapitated Sludge off of her foot, making it fly in a low arc before landing with a faint splat.

'You.' Genuinely confused, Kaidan furrowed his brow, and cocked his head to one side. Sighing exasperatedly, the girl rolled her eyes, and walked round him to strip a dead assailant of their valuables.

'I'm a bounty hunter,' she said, yanking a sword belt from around the crumpled figure's waist, 'and there's a price on your head.' Kaidan gaped for a moment, bewildered.

'…Why?' Without turning, the girl replied.

'Why not? It seems every hybrid needs hunting down these days.'

'Hybrid?' Kaidan's eyes flashed with alarm, 'You hunt down hybrids?' The girl chuckled, and stood to face him again.

'In a manner of speaking,' she began, bending over in some kind of mocking curtsey, 'After all, it takes a thief to catch a thief.' Kaidan exhaled, the air rushing out of him like it'd been held there for days.

'What?' she chided, faint humour showing on her face, 'you thought I killed them?' She continued with no response, 'If I were a human, I wouldn't be able to.' She said matter-of-factly, crossing her arms, her amber eyes flickering with what could be interpreted as familial pride. Kaidan grinned.

'You know where they are?'

'Yes.' A few moments of silence passed as Kaidan waited for an elaboration. He found none.

'…you're not going to tell me?'

'No.'

'Why not?' he asked, trying to restrain his irritation.

'Why should I? You seem fine on your own.' Kaidan looked around at the pile of corpses, and then back to the girl.

'Are you trying to be funny?'

'I don't need to try.' The girl turned her back on him, flopping the sword belt over her shoulder as she did so. As she started to walk away, Kaidan groaned to himself in annoyance, and caught up.

'I could just follow you, you know.'

'But then I could just kill you.'

'…Good point.' The girl halted to look back over her shoulder at Kaidan. A half-hidden smirk was playing at the edge of her lips.

'The name's Aden. Thanks for asking.' She faced forward again, and Kaidan chuckled, noting her fondness for sarcasm.

'Kaidan Sawyer. Likewise.'

In what felt like a few minutes of walking behind her in complete silence, Kaidan found the time to observe Aden's state of dress. Black, tight-fitting jeans slipped into equally black leather boots, the cuff turned down at the knee; above, she wore a long-sleeved black shirt, the ends of which were just visible out of the sleeves of an also-black leather jacket. Kaidan remarked to himself that the kind of bounty hunter that only goes out at night, and so dresses accordingly, would most likely have hideouts for during the day. He pressed the question.

'So, where are we headed?' Aden said nothing.

'Hellooooo?' Kaidan only just refrained from waving his arm in her face, for fear of having it cut off. But when she still said nothing, he began to bristle.

'Aden,' he addressed her irritably, 'where are we going? Uptown? The docks? The sewers?' No reply.

'Aden!' he snapped, his voice almost a snarl. Finally eliciting a response, Aden looked over her shoulder at him again, her expression that of mild concern.

'You have anger issues. Are you sure you're not a full-blood?' Kaidan narrowed his eyes.

'I never said I wasn't.' The familiar tree of anger began to incandesce inside him, gently swaying in the wind.

'…Good point.' Aden turned away again, and the tree inside Kaidan slowly unfurled its leaves.

'Hey! I was talking to you!'

'Unfortunately, you still are.' Kaidan growled, and Aden glanced at him again, seeing how anger buffed the already metallic shine in his copper eyes. Quickly looking forwards once more, she was sure he wasn't a hybrid. She changed tack.

'So, where are you from?' she enquired, any trace of her trademark sarcasm gone for the moment.

'Hereabouts.' Kaidan was still fuming, but quieter than before.

'The Capital? Which borough?' she asked ever-so-sweetly.

'The one you're never seeing.' His reply was abrupt, and Aden noted how easy it was for his anger to flare, threatening to spread into others. She clenched and unclenched her fists subconsciously.

'So you live in an invisible borough, then?'

'Hmph. It might as well be invisible.' He muttered. Aden caught his tone.

'Deprived area?' Kaidan's reply was wordless, but his facial expression spoke volumes. Aden's face softened a little and she continued, 'You don't look deprived to me,' trying to change the subject by gesturing at his neat and clean, if slightly worn, clothes.

'My parents gave me all they could, okay?!' he barked, making Aden jump.

'I never said they didn't…' she offered, having no idea why her new acquaintance was so volatile, 'what's up with you?' Kaidan threw a vicous glance in Aden's direction, not caring to remember that she had no idea what he'd been through recently. She held her hands up in defeat.

'Okay, whatever, it doesn't matter anyway.' Kaidan saw the opportunity to press his companion as to why her giving a damn suddenly became irrelevant, but reasoned – unusually for him – that any concern was an improvement on his norm. He remained silent. After what felt like a new age of awkwardness, Aden again spoke, this time quieter than her usual tone, as if she were talking to herself.

'…it's more than could be said for my parents.' Regardless of whom her audience was, Kaidan's head snapped in her direction.

'Huh? What happened between you and them?' he cocked his head to one side, and Aden sighed exasperatedly.

'Nothing happened.' She said quickly, regretting having mentioned them in the first place.

'Tell me.' Kaidan persisted, his eyes momentarily flashing with curiosity.

'No. You're entitled to your secrets, as I am to mine.' He couldn't help but notice the enigmatic tone in her voice.

'Hmph.' Kaidan exhaled sulkily, crossing his arms, 'Suit yourself.'

'I intend to.' Another moment of silence passed, before Kaidan pounced again.

'Did they not pay you enough attention?'

'Shut up, Kaidan.' Aden's usually substantial patience was wearing thinner by the second.

'Oh… too much attention?'

'I said shut up!' Aden stopped mid-stride to glare witheringly at Kaidan, who smirked and shrugged.

'I heard you the first time. What makes you think I wouldn't ignore you twice?' Aden narrowed her eyes, but couldn't help but smile faintly at his shameless honesty. There was something about him that made him seem younger than he appeared. Sure, he had the sinewy, under-fed frame of a teenager in a growth spurt, but his eyes were like embers, and not nearly as powerful as they could be, given time… or maybe something else. She shrugged the thought off, and continued walking. After a few minutes, Kaidan tried once more to ascertain their destination.

'Sooo… where are we going?' the two of them had – thanks to Aden's sense of direction – found their way into an isolated backstreet, which ran down the center of a block of cramped flats, and Kaidan's curiosity had yet again caught up with him. Aden waved her hand towards a side-alley.

'Here.' As she rounded the corner into the damp expanse, Kaidan stopped for a second to make mental note of the street on which their destination was located. He would have been able to write it down, had he known he needed to remember places he hadn't been to before.

'Skyset Road, South…' he muttered. As much as he'd lived in the Capital for all that he remembered of his life, this borough was outside of his usual range. It wasn't as if there was anything of much use to him here – more underprivileged families and disreputable shops were the last things on his wish list. After a few moments, he heard Aden's soles clang against a metal ladder from within the alley, and his thoughts left him.

'Hey! Are you coming, or what?' He grimaced wryly at the street sign, and it remained unmoving, as if it acknowledged his trepidation of female impatience, and then Kaidan bounded over to where Aden was hanging, one arm holding her in place while her body leant back off of the ladder's creaking frame.

'Lead the way.' Aden nodded in silent recognition, and continued to climb the ladder, up to the fire escape of what looked like a deserted set of flats. Kaidan leapt at the metal scaffold, and his shin clanged garishly at the steelwork. Aden looked down from her raised position at him, a slightly perturbed questioning in her eyes.

'Are you okay?' Kaidan grunted, and shifted his leg away from the rungs of the ladder.

'I'm fine. Shall we?' He pointed towards the metal platform above with his chin, and Aden resumed her ascent. As he too began to climb, Kaidan mentally rebuked himself for being so careless with his secrets.

The flat the two entered was dank, but the feeling was insubstantial compared to the oppressing murk that hung over the streets, encouraged by the growing storm outside. Kaidan surveyed his surroundings, and found that Aden did not do the same, implying that she had known this place for some time. She stopped, and waited until Kaidan was beside her before spreading her arms and letting them clap to her sides, her wordless way of saying 'Well, this is it.'

Before Kaidan could comment on Aden's welcoming him into her world, a thump rang through his head as someone or something wrestled him to the floor, painfully tightening a fist in his hair whilst their knees dug hard into his shoulder blades. As he tried to utter a protest, his head was yanked backwards, and a thin, sharp blade was pressed to his throat. This feeling of helplessness was all too familiar to Kaidan, and something familiar inside him quivered in anticipation. From behind him, an exasperated sigh transpired.

'Vixen…' Aden's voice was calm, and not in the least bit surprised by the stranger's actions. Kaidan grumbled, and the knife encroached further on his voicebox.

'Who is he?' the voice demanded. Its owner was obviously female, and of a similar age to Aden. The aforementioned girl responded, speaking slowly as if to an irritated carnivore.

'Vixen, this is Kaidan. I just saved his ass, so don't kill him just yet.'

_Just yet?_ Kaidan thought angrily, before being knocked out of his thoughts by his head being slammed into the floor. Reluctantly, the weight on his back receded, and the insistent feeling he couldn't quite place did the same. Rubbing the back of his head, he stood and turned to face this 'Vixen', who was evidently familiar with Aden.

She stood to about an inch above Aden's head height, but bore less of her gaunt features. She was slim and finely built, but Kaidan knew all too well that she was stronger than she looked. Her hair hung in loosely-curled swathes until her waist, where the ends of the highlighted sections, which were of varying bright colours, intermingled with those of the ivory-white majority of her hair. Her eyes were wide and bright, and the colour of dark lavender, with tints of pink. As Kaidan examined them more closely, he found iridescent flecks of silver dotted among the other pigments, making her eyes overall opalescent like the wings on a butterfly. At her neck hung a pendant, at the center of which was a bright shard of light blue crystal that sat comfortably on her sternum, which was covered by a dark navy top. The rest of her attire was of a similar nature, with close-fitted black trousers and knee-high brown leather boots. As Kaidan observed, he saw her bend down and slip the knife she'd threatened him with under the supple, warmly-coloured leather. She glanced up in his direction.

'It's rude to stare, you know.' Kaidan rolled his eyes. It would appear that familiarity is not the only thing Aden and this newcomer shared.

'It's rude to roll your eyes, too,' she added, clearly well-versed in acerbity. Kaidan huffed.

'Oh, so it's perfectly acceptable to hold a knife to someone's throat?'

'In this instance, it's understandable,' Aden interjected, knowing too well Kaidan's affinity for escalating things quickly, 'Vixen and me get by through not trusting anyone.' Kaidan frowned, and crossed his arms.

'Then why am I here?' Aden stepped forward and took a lock of Kaidan's old-blood-coloured hair between her fingers.

'Because you're not just anyone,' she explained, twisting the hair in her hand, 'Humans don't have hair like this.'

'I could have dyed it.' Kaidan ventured, clearly trying to dig Aden into a hole. From her side, Vixen sniggered quietly as her friend released the strands.

'No-one would dye their hair that awful colour.'

'Hey!' Kaidan scowled indignantly, and Aden chuckled in good humour.

'She is right on that score. It's kinda…' she thought for a moment, 'scabby.'

'…scabby?'

'Yeah. It's the colour of… you know… scabs.' Kaidan sighed exasperatedly.

'And your hair is any better, is it?' He gestured to the heliotrope streaks in Vixen's hair, and she put a hand on her hip, offended.

'Actually, it's fabulous.' She flicked her hair off her shoulder, and it swished round to her back like a pendulum. Kaidan groaned and put a hand over his face.

'Why me?' he muttered into his palm. Aden grinned.

'You're the one that followed me.' Kaidan stared at her, deadpan.

'Like you said, you saved my ass. It's only fair that I follow you home.' Vixen sighed.

'Demon logic?' Kaidan nodded, feeling that somehow that was an apt description of him.

'The very best!'

'Oh, boy…' Aden muttered to herself as she began to wander over to a shelf that was crammed with books, and browsed purposefully through the jumbled display. When she found what she was looking for, she opened it, flicked to about half-way through, and looked up at Kaidan questioningly.

'So, why are you here?' Kaidan looked confused for a moment, before she clarified, 'In the human world.' His expression cleared, and he rifled around in his back pocket, eventually withdrawing a small black book held shut by a strip of elastic. He'd started keeping a diary on Faith's instruction; she thought it might be handy if he ever needed to review what he'd seen or heard at any point. It appeared that now, rather than refreshing his memory, it served as a useful tool for explaining all that had happened up till now. He handed it to Aden.

As she read the entries, Aden's face grew into that of concern, and she glanced from the book to the diary and back again several times, before she frowned, slammed the book shut, and returned Kaidan's pocket-diary. Vixen cocked her head, and Aden threw her a worried glance.

'Why were you kicked out of the Hades immediately after entering it? What exactly did you do?' she asked, and Kaidan sighed and shrugged.

'No idea.' Vixen pondered this for a moment, and then inspiration was visible in her eyes. Almost as soon as it was there, it was overshadowed by what was almost dread, and she strode to Aden's side, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

'What if he's-'

'No.' Aden cut her off, 'Look at him! There's no way he could be-' Vixen returned the favour, and grabbed the book from her friend's hands, before opening it at a specific page and pointing at it.

'This isn't natural. What's to say that he couldn't-?' Finally, Kaidan took his turn of interruption, and waved at the two hybrids.

'Yoo-hoo, what are you two even talking about?' Vixen and Aden hastily plastered their faces in a grin, and replied almost in perfect unison.

'Nothing!' the all-too-sweet expressions made Kaidan shake his head in defeat.

'Girls…'

'Hey!' Vixen reprimanded, her frown the visual equivalent of a head slap. Kaidan thought for a moment, then smirked at her.

'If you're not gonna tell me what's up with you two…' before he finished his sentence, Kaidan had lunged forwards, and put his forearm down the inner spine of the book, his hand clasped around the bottom edge. He threw a devilish grin at Aden, who had one eyebrow raised quizzically as her friend remained motionless.

'Are you sure you want to do that?' Slightly confused, Kaidan tried gently tugging at the book, only to find it immoveable in Vixen's hands. In a moment, his smirk returned, and he slapped the underside of the book, forcing it out of Vixen's grip and into his. He let out a triumphant laugh, and backed away, subconsciously aware that Vixen would almost certainly try to get it back. After a few testy moments of observing the two girls, he looked down at the book in his hands.

'…Huh?' the page was adorned with intricate-looking symbols and a kind of tribal artwork that bordered dense blocks of what he assumed was writing, but meant nothing to him; this tongue was completely alien, and he looked to Aden for explanation.

'Maybe you should look a little closer…' Aden suggested, and Kaidan was vaguely aware of a barely-veiled mischievous grin at the edge of her lips, but disregarded it, attributing it to her generally sarcastic nature. He held the book closer to his face.

For the second time since meeting Aden, Kaidan made a transgression – and a resounding thump echoed through the dank air, which was followed by a muffled yell. Aden looked to Vixen, who was smirking with satisfaction, and then looked back to Kaidan, who was shouting in protest, his face clamped within the halves of the book. She couldn't restrain a giggle as he removed his hands from the book – which remained fastened to his face, pulling it downwards as gravity took effect – and tried failingly to claw it off of himself. She looked to Vixen, who was gazing at the book with a look of amused concentration in her eyes.

'D'you think you should let him go now?' Vixen thought for a moment.

'Nah.'


	5. The Party Assembles

The clouds faltered, and the rain pattered to a stop. Sinking back into a sedate ocean blue, Faith's eyes flicked away from the sky above, and to the broad figure beside her. He cast her a glance out the corner of his eye, grinned, and flicked a piece of something unpleasant and sticky off the shoulder of his leather jacket, chuckling lightly.

'Well… that solves that problem.' Faith smiled, and stuck a hand in his, nodding, and starting to drag him down the pavement.

'It sure does. Nice going back there, by the way.' Looking ahead, she felt a squeeze on her hand that showed Klaus' reciprocation of her compliment. She grinned.

'So… should we look for Kaidan now we've seen that hunting party off?' Klaus asked, trotting to catch up with his power-walking companion. Before he could get an answer, however, she'd stopped dead in her tracks, making him pile into her back. She hunkered over, eyes narrowed, and he stumbled, using her shoulders to steady himself. She shrugged him off, and took a few cautious steps forward.

'U-uhh, Fay…?' Faith waved him into silence. Several dozen yards away, she heard the echoing slap of shoes on still-puddled roads, and strained to hear a trio of voices speaking against the backdrop of gurgling gutters and distant vehicles that was ever-present in the city. She identified one by its petulant sarcasm to be Kaidan, but all she knew of the other two was that they were female. She half-turned back to Klaus.

'He's up ahead, and there are two girls with him.' Klaus snorted in humour.

'They must be desperate.' Faith cast him a severe glance as his voice ricocheted off the damp brickwork, inexorably finding itself in the ears of their subjects.

Aden froze, and cocked her head to one side.

'What is it, Addy?' Vixen enquired, concern misting over her opalescent eyes. Her friend was silent for a moment, cupping her ear to the faint sounds of speech. Seemingly catching on a phrase that provoked her, she unsheathed her swords in unison, and sank into a low crouch, ready to run. Without turning, she spoke, her voice low and tense.

'We've been ratted. Get ready.' Vixen sighed, and unhooked a longbow from her shoulder, one that she'd picked up when Kaidan had pleaded with them to help find his friends. Her fingers danced around the mouth of the quiver that sat at her waist, and she threw her eyes over to Kaidan's. The copper-eyed boy nodded in return, and stepped backwards, until he was behind her. As much as he hated being unarmed, there was little he could do to change things, so he had to rely on the other two for the time being. In front, Aden held up three fingers, and gave them a silent countdown to zero.

Upon reaching it, the three sprang round the corner, and Aden gasped, only just ducking a fist that sailed through the air at head-height. She sank to her knees, and brought the hilt of her sword up hard into the offender's gut, causing a loud thump to reverberate throughout his ribcage. Klaus coughed, and bent over double, but Aden wasn't done yet. In a split-second, she shifted her weight onto her right leg, and slammed her left foot into Klaus' chest, knocking him backwards. She righted herself, and raised her right arm in the air, using her momentum to send the blade of her black crystal sword singing downwards towards its target.

'STOP!' Kaidan yelled, holding an entreating hand out toward Aden. The girl in question growled under her breath, and scowled at Klaus as if he'd made the mistake of the century.

Klaus stared intently at the onyx blade that hung in the air around a millimetre above the bridge of his nose, captivated by its lustre. He wasn't breathing, and looked as though time had divorced him. Kaidan exhaled noisily, arms sagging with relief.

'Thank you.' He breathed, nearly sinking to his knees in the blessed anti-climax. Aden scoffed, and withdrew her weapon, leaving Klaus the opportunity to breathe for what felt like the first time in an age. He drank in the air, and returned to his full standing height like a re-inflating zeppelin. Once he was arisen, he darted his dark brown eyes to the back of the group in front of him.

'You too, Fay.' Bemused, all except Klaus turned around in almost perfect unison. Behind Vixen, who was unaware of it until now, was Faith, her switchblade held dagger-like in her hand, poised threateningly at neck-height. The red-haired girl sighed, and lowered her blade; Vixen eyed her, wordlessly seething as she circled round her and Kaidan, and returned to Klaus' side.

'So, these are your friends, I take it?' Aden asked, irritation still perceptible in her voice.

'Yeah, they are. Sorry guys, I didn't know it was you.' He apologised, walking to the no-man's-land between the two pairs, 'Uhh, Faith, Klaus, this is Vixen and Aden,' he introduced, waving at the white and black-haired girls in order, before swinging his hands round to point at Klaus and Faith again, 'and… vice versa.' He smiled weakly, and backed off, hoping that the opposing parties would meet and greet in the space he left. Instead, however, Aden half-nodded, and spoke brusquely, her tone contrasting her words.

'Good to meet you.' Vixen grunted in concurrence, just as tersely as her friend had done. Kaidan grimaced to himself, and watched with mild worry as Faith took a step forward.

'Likewise. I take it you've been helping our friend here?' Before Vixen could make a scathing reply, Kaidan interjected.

'Yes, they have. They have been very helpful, so can we stop staring at each other like you're about to eat one another? Please?' Four pairs of eyes turned to him, and he grinned sheepishly. Just as the gazes were beginning to unsettle him, Klaus chuckled dryly.

'Sure.'

* * *

><p>'…why are those two here again?' Vixen chided, sitting cross-legged atop a chest, regarding Faith and Klaus with feline distaste. From her position kneeling next to the iron-hinged box, Aden leant in towards her companion's ear.<p>

'Kaidan said they know lots about demons, so he thought they could help us help him.' Vixen rolled her eyes.

'And why are we helping him?' Aden opened her mouth to reply, but floundered a little, before shrugging dismissively. In all honesty, she had no idea.

Across the room, Faith was bent over a book, and Klaus was hawking over her shoulder, trying to scrutinise the pages as much as possible before she flipped them over to read a different passage. In the middle of the room, standing with one foot on the other – as he had nothing better to do – was Kaidan, and a mixture of boredom and nervous displacement was inscribed on his vellum-coloured face. Rolling his eyes and taking a step back as yet again his subject was stolen from him, Klaus looked around the room, and his curious gaze fell on the burgundy-haired boy. He walked over, all the while regarding him with interest.

'Sooooo…' he began, folding his arms behind his back, 'you don't know what you are, Kaidan?' Kaidan looked up, his self-shrouded fog lifting slowly.

'U-umm, well, I could always be just a regular human, I guess,' he said tentatively, 'I mean, my parents are both human.'

'Parents?' Klaus parroted, cocking his head.

'Yeah, my family. I-I know I was adopted and all, but-'

'Aha! Klaus beamed, 'So you don't know for sure?'

'W-well, no.' Kaidan conceded nervously. He looked at the floor, then up again in self-consciousness as Klaus brought one hand up under his chin and held it musingly.

'Hmm… there is a ritual we could try to tell if you're full-blood demon or not. Faith?' he turned to his girlfriend, who snapped the book in her hands shut, and strolled over purposefully. She took Kaidan's shoulder in her hand, and looked intently into his eyes, hers glimmering with a faint turquoise glow.

'Do you want to do this, Kaidan? If the test comes up positive, it will hurt quite badly.' Discs of copper widened with alarm.

'Do what?' Faith loosed his shoulder for a moment, and nodded to Aden, who turned to Vixen, who frowned for a moment, before mouthing "Ah, okay" and levering herself off of the chest upon which she was seated. Aden opened the trunk, and rifled through it, eventually withdrawing a small cut-glass bottle, that refracted the light like it was a frozen star. She held it reverently, and rose to her feet, walking over to Kaidan's side. He observed the delicate object with dread.

'This is a vial of holy water,' Aden explained, 'it causes a singular reaction in demons. It's a fool-proof way to see if you're full-blood or not.' Kaidan bit his lip, unsure how to proceed.

'Y-you said it would hurt, right?' he tapped Faith's hand, unable to tear his eyes away from the little bottle, 'If that's the case, then aren't you sure there isn't another way?' Vixen chuckled in amusement, from her vantage point a few feet behind Aden.

'There's no other way, Kade. Be a man, why don't you?' Kaidan stammered, licking his lips hesitantly.

'B-but I…' Something about that bottle made his blood run cold, and for some reason that was an unspeakably uncomfortable feeling for Kaidan to experience. Seeing his troubled expression, Klaus smirked.

'He's a full-blood.' Vixen chuckled at him.

'I'll take you up on a bet on that.' Klaus flicked his eyes to those of opalescent pinky-purple, and nodded.

'Game on.' As the two grinned mischievously at each other, Faith cleared her throat.

'Guys, please.' The chocolate-eyed boy stared at his feet like a scolded child, and Vixen's quiet chuckling was silenced. Faith turned back to Kaidan.

'There is no alternative, Kade. I'm sorry, but we really have to do it if you want to know for sure.' Kaidan looked at the red-haired girl, then to the vial that instilled him with irrevocable dread. He sighed forlornly.

'…make it quick.'

Ever the one for a ceremony, Klaus lowered Kaidan to his knees, and began drawing a chalk circle around him. While he did this, Vixen whispered to Aden, the two of them leant against the wall, watching the proceedings with interest.

'I'm going to have to wash that off the floor afterwards, aren't I?' Aden cast her a half-grin.

'Well, I'm not doing it.' Vixen rolled her eyes.

'One of these days, Fireball, I'm going to get you to do some housework.' Aden scoffed.

'Not likely.'

Kaidan rocked back onto his pelvis, and hugged his knees close to him as the chalk line encircled him completely. Feeling his breathing grow ragged, he inwardly noted that this was the first time he'd felt truly unsettled. He mocked himself that it was over something as innocuous as a chalk line, but then his eyes fell on the bottle in Faith's hands, and he recanted his statement.

Faith crouched down just outside of the circle, and held her hand out, palm upwards. Kaidan, shaking, laid his hand in hers, and flinched as she closed her fingers around it, making it impossible for him to retract his arm. She looked at him with concern.

'Easy now, Kaidan. This will all be over shortly.' Kaidan swallowed hard, and nodded gingerly. Faith exhaled, deposited the bottle on the floor outside the circle, and rolled up the sleeve of Kaidan's trenchcoat, revealing the pale-ish skin beneath. Picking up the bottle once more, she levered the stopper out with her thumb and index finger, the weight of the object nestled on her palm. She dropped the stopper in her lap, and leant over Kaidan's forearm. Concentrating all of her energy on the open bottle in her hand, she felt something in her shift into gear as her eyes changed from turquoise to deep purple, portraying the act she was about to perform.

Slowly, inexorably, she began to tilt the tiny decanter, and Kaidan's heart hammered into the back of his sternum as the clear liquid inside it slid towards its neck. Unable to move, whether by Faith's grip or his first experience of true fear he didn't know, but either way, he sincerely wished that it wasn't the case. Faith shut her eyes, and gave the vial the final jerk that sent the liquid pouring from its vessel and onto the waiting arm below.

The familiar-but-unnameable thing that resided permanently in Kaidan's gut, which had been cowering, whimpering, in the recesses of his chest cavity, had a volatile change of heart as soon as the holy water touched its host. The sensation inside him morphed, shrieking as it recoiled back into other parts of his body, as if seeking cover from a red-hot poker.

Kaidan screamed, and threw himself backwards and away from the searing contact, gasping and yelping like a cat in an iron maiden. The thing inside him wailed, and turned itself to razors in self-defence against the onslaught. He fell onto his back, and clutched his arm as he howled in pain, unable to keep tears of agony pouring down his face at the pain from inside and out. This intense consecration of his species seemed to last an eon, and by the end of it he was rolled onto his side, panting and sobbing as the arcs of torment snaked further through him, too exhausted to protest any more than that. His innards slowly heated up to a white glow, and began to melt into a comforting mass of severe heat, that blinded his pain, and soothed him into an anguished and restless slumber.

* * *

><p>When Kaidan regained awareness of his surroundings, he deciphered that he was horizontal, and his head was rested on something soft, as there was a latent ache there that was not currently being agitated. As his eyes grew to an open focus, he centred in on a fiery iris that was a few feet above him. As he retrieved vision beyond a single point, he noted the pair of eyes that undoubtedly belonged to Aden. He blinked a few times, blearily.<p>

'He's awake!' she called, standing up. Kaidan tried to murmur something, but all that came out was a slurred string of vowels. Aden looked back at him, and laughed gently, 'He's not coherent, but he's awake.' Kaidan could hear someone else approaching, but felt too fatigued to turn his head as they came in and stood at the foot of what he assumed was a bed. However, he instantly recognized the newcomer when they spoke.

'Still with us, eh, Mr Full-Blood?' Klaus asked, bending over Kaidan's body, putting a hand on his hip. Kaidan groaned, and shut his eyes again. Klaus laughed, 'Begrudgingly, it seems.' Kaidan was vaguely aware of footsteps retreating, but stopping at about what he presumed to be doorway-distance. Next, voices were hushed, like they didn't want Kaidan to hear.

'If he's 100% demon blood, why would the netherworld reject him?' It as Aden.

'I don't know; any ideas, Fay?' Another set of footsteps approached.

'Well, there's always Vindicta.' Faith suggested.

'What's Vindicta?' Aden enquired, curiosity obvious in her voice.

'An inventory holdings company, but it's not what they do that's interesting: it's their boss.' Faith answered, her voice as low as Aden's.

'What does the boss do?' Another voice, Vixen's, approached from past the other three.

'What he does is work as a kind of walking library for hybrids. He knows everything there is to know about our history, as well as having an encyclopaedic knowledge of our worlds anyway.' Klaus chipped in, reverence obvious in his tone.

'So,' Aden proposed, 'He'll know what happened to Kaidan? I mean, it's pretty weird – a demon being thrown into the human world, and adopted by humans? Normally, they'd never let that happen, let alone encourage it. Besides, demons mature slowly, so he must have been here for at least a hundred years, if not more.' The other three murmured in consensus.

'It is odd, but if anyone will know about it, it's Cyrus.' Faith provided reassuringly.

'Then it's settled,' Vixen piped up, drawing the attention of everyone in the group as she toyed with a throwing knife in her hand, causing a ringing noise to echo from its blade as she flicked its tip with her fingernail, 'tomorrow, when Kaidan's ready, we're going to ransack this Vindicta Inventories.'

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I have forgotten to say this in other chapters, so I'd like to take the opportunity to do it now: Thank you for reading, reviewing, and all else you have done, and the following characters belong to the following people:**

**Vixen Chazona: HallowThorn**

**Aden Ravenkey: DivergentShadowhunter99**

**Klaus Clarke: loyaltoloki**

**Faith Pryke: loyaltoloki**


	6. Infiltration and Introductions

**A/N: Please consider this notice an advance warning of minor gore and swearing in this chapter. Also, herein is contained a reference to Addrammelech, in regards to clothing. FFXII fans, do not fear, your Esper is unharmed, and is not currently under employment in a sweatshop. The Addrammelech I refer to is the demon in Christian mythology that is considered to be in charge of co-ordinating Satan's wardrobe. I just thought that was such a novel job description, I had to reference it somewhere, and where better than in a fanfic about demons? Also, thanks to HallowThorn for help with the evil goons! It is much appreciated.**

**Anywho, enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Like a thin jumper thrown over the head of the world, night obscured most visibility, save for a few pin-pricks of yellow light detailing the sky. Below it, the faint outline of five figures could be seen, two of which had weapons visibly about their person. The one at the head of the party, a sword in each hand, took her strides carefully, looking to leave any debris on the ground undisturbed as she hurried round the corner of a warehouse. Behind her, her companion knocked an arrow in her longbow, and held it in place with one hand as she traced her fingers down the concrete breeze-blocks, looking for a crevice. Upon finding one, she stalled, and raised her foot up to the indentation, glancing up the face of the building before pulling herself up to its roof, bow still held in one hand.<p>

Upon reaching the top, she crouched down low to the corrugated steel, and padded silently towards the apex of the sloped roof. When she got there, she readied her bow, and awaited any developments.

Back on the ground, Aden waved the rest of her group to follow, and she darted across the faintly illuminated chasm between two barn-like structures. Soundlessly approaching a door, she put her back to the wall, and held her swords parallel with her face. Following a mental countdown, she whirled into the doorway, and frowned a little with mild disappointment upon finding nothing there. Looking up to the top of the building she had just left, she held her right hand in the air, her thumb jutting away from the hilt of her black-crystal sword in a gesture of the all-clear. On the roof, Vixen nodded down to her in acknowledgement. From behind the sword-wielding hybrid, a copper-eyed full-blood half-raised a perplexed hand.

'Aden, you do realise that Cyrus is a friend?' Aden rolled her eyes.

'Such an innocent, Kaidan – yes, this Cyrus might be on our side, but his corporation certainly won't be. I'm guessing we're supposed to get captured first?' she prompted, looking back over her shoulder to Faith and Klaus. Klaus nodded.

'He requests to see any trespassers, so he'd know it was us.' Aden laughed dryly, dismissing the idea with a flick of her ebony hair, which was now tied into a careful braid that reached to the middle of her back.

'Do you know the way to his office?' she asked, still staring intently at the hybrids. Slowly, Faith nodded, narrowing her eyes slightly as she scrutinised her memory, and wondered why Aden needed such information.

'Good. We're going there without unnecessary escort.' Faith gaped at Aden in disbelief.

'Are you dense or something? If we get any closer to Cyrus than we are now, the security teams will shoot first, ask questions later.' She reprimanded, eyes burnishing a little. Aden smirked at her unease.

'It's a good thing I've done this before, then, isn't it?'

A few hundred yards or so west of the group, a small bunker sat, hunkered over the dirt like a scheming alley-cat. In it were three figures, one more slender than the other two, and overall smaller in stature. The two men were broad and well-muscled, though one of them had a paunch that he stroked idly as he waited for orders. The female noticed this, and hissed reproachfully at him.

'Hey! If you stopped thinking about your stomach for five minutes, maybe we'd get a pay-rise once in a while.' The pot-bellied male waved nonchalantly.

'Pffft, lighten up – it's not like we've got anything to do anyway.' He turned to his companion, who was leant silently against a packing crate, fussing over his greyed hair, 'Isn't that right, Trevor?' Trevor looked up in surprise, then realised only his co-workers were there, and his blue eyes wandered away in disinterest.

'Uhh, yeah. Sure.' The female scoffed, and rolled her eyes.

'You two are hopeless.' She muttered, mostly to herself, but audibly enough for the other two to be aware of the rebuke. The pot-bellied one grunted dismissively, and rummaged through his pockets absent-mindedly. After a small awkward silence, he spoke.

'…has anyone got any biscuits?'

In the adjacent building, Kaidan trotted to keep up with his stealthy companions. For his size, Klaus was remarkably dexterous, and he managed to travel along the darkened corridors almost imperceptibly, and Faith, too seemed at home in the half-light. He reasoned that this may well be down to their hybrid nature, but soon dismissed the idea, as his attention was drawn elsewhere.

The door to a room up ahead was standing ajar, and some kind of conversation was taking place behind it. Cocking his head to the sounds, Kaidan caught a few phrases here and there. Something about… biscuits?

'Kaidan!' Faith hissed, grabbing his shoulder and knocking him back into the present. She jabbed her finger at a crossroads in the passageway, around the edge of which he could just make out the ends of Aden's hair as she vanished around it, 'Aden's going to circle round and see if there's another way past. In the meantime, you stay here and whatever you do, don't make a sound.' Kaidan nodded, and sank onto his knees, leaning against the wall.

Around thirty seconds later, a familiar high-cheek-boned hybrid appeared around the wall, and Faith jabbed Kaidan in the back, making him jolt forwards, and turn around, scowling in distaste. Upon seeing Aden, he spoke in a hushed tone.

'So?' he prompted eagerly. Aden shook her head, and pointed to the doorway.

'This is the only way,' she hissed, 'You go first, Kaidan.' The copper-eyed boy pointed to the centre of his chest, a look of questioning on his face. Faith and Aden nodded encouragingly, and Klaus waved him on in a shooing motion. Kaidan sighed, and tried to stand up.

Unfortunately for all concerned, trying was as close as he got. While he was kneeling down, waiting for Aden, he'd squirmed a little, trying to find a comfortable position in which to rest. Sadly, where his trouser-legs had pulled up and his trenchcoat had flopped down, its hem was now snagged on a rivet in his prosthetic leg, making him unable to extend himself beyond a crouch.

However, he didn't know this until he tried to spring into a trot, and instead sent himself sprawling across the doorway in a stumbling belly-flop, which in turn sent the harsh echo of the dull thump of him impacting the floor ricocheting around the linoleum-lined corridor. Kaidan laid still for a moment, before reasoning that he'd been noticed already, so it must assuredly by acceptable to declare his discomfort. He groaned loudly, and Aden slapped her palm to her face. From inside the room, metaphorical ears pricked up.

'Did you hear that?' The voice was thin, female, and had a sharp, bitter edge.

'Uh?' The subsequent voice was coarse, male, and inattentive. The female sighed.

'There's someone outside, you chump!' She hissed, and a metallic clicking indicated the cocking of a gun, 'Get ready.'

'Huh? Oh, yeah.' Another voice chipped in, also male, but more tinny than the other. Outside, Aden sighed through her nose, gritting her teeth. She clamped a hand round Kaidan's left ankle – the other leg being pulled up under his body, thus causing him to be winded when he landed on it – and hauled him back from the doorway. Once she'd let go, Kaidan rolled onto his back and fumbled with the hem of his coat, freeing his leg, and quickly levering himself into a sitting position. He glanced at Aden apologetically, only to find that this 'Aden' was the empty air between him and Klaus, whose brow was furrowed in tense awareness. He flicked his brown eyes to Kaidan.

'We're splitting up,' he whispered, low enough for it to have almost been mouthing, 'Aden's going outside, and me and Fay are going to try up ahead. You go back and see if you can find somewhere to lay low till we come for you.' Comprehending the words but not the reason behind them, Kaidan nodded, and scrambled to his feet, this time successfully. As he hurried past, Faith gave him and encouraging slap on the back, making him falter and turn, throwing an over-the-top salute, before returning to his course, and running as fast and silently as possible back the way they'd come.

Once he'd gone, Faith's eyes flickered into a yellowish brown, portraying her change of mood. She turned to Klaus.

'Ready for a little chase?' The broad hybrid nodded, smirking, and rose to his feet, pulling his girlfriend up by the hand. She flashed a half-grin, and rotated her torso until it was facing the doorway. Putting her fingers in her mouth and giving a long, high-pitched whistle, she laughed to herself, and jogged leisurely past, beckoning for Klaus to follow.

Almost as soon as they'd passed, the door swung open, and a slightly perturbed-looking man appeared on the threshold, his blue eyes narrowed in uneasy concern. He had a hand paused at his hip, barely touching the hilt of a small sidearm, the other held behind him, pushing his shoulders back and upwards, presumably to make him seem more imposing, but instead made his paunch more obvious against the confines of his one-size-too-small formal grey shirt. His eyes traced across the hallway, and widened in alarm as they fell on the two hybrids, their build and heights in stark contrast to one another in the shadows.

'Boss!' the grey-haired man called, drawing his weapon and hunkering slightly, 'we've got two intruders out here!' He raised his weapon, levelling it with Klaus' chest, 'Put your hands above your head! Don't move!' He cast the weapon over Faith, then back to the taller, seemingly more threatening figure. Klaus chuckled.

'Sorry pal, I don't take orders.' Leaning over, Klaus grinned, and charged, directing his shoulder directly at the guard's sternum. He impacted, and sent the man sprawling backwards across the shiny floor with a humiliating squeak. Klaus straightened again, and turned to Faith as the man started to flail, trying to get up.

'Go, Fay! Run!' Faith nodded, and darted into the blackness. Klaus returned to facing the now-kneeling guard, who was panting, trying to reinstate his lungs in their intended configuration. Adeptly side-stepping round him, the tall hybrid took off down the hallway.

From the doorway, another grey-shirted man peered out, clearly unsettled by the noises of the ruckus outside. Behind him, his superior dug a pointed elbow into his ribs, and heaved him to one side. She glared scornfully at the still-stunned paunchy man.

'Trevor, where did they go?!' She hissed, unspoken threats looming behind her words with a subtle venom. Trevor wheezed, and started coughing, seemingly disinclined towards speech at the present. The female growled.

'Ugh, I don't have time for this. Spread out and find them!'

A few minutes of jogging away, Faith had managed to find herself a store-room ideal for laying low until Klaus arrived. They knew each other well, so she trusted in the fact that he would know where she'd chosen to go. However, she thought disappointedly to herself, this would have been an ideal place for Kaidan to stay, only he clearly had about the same field of vision as the cronies they were outpacing, which wasn't ideal. She sighed, and leant back against a crate, its 'this way up' arrow pointing sideways, and fingered her switchblade absent-mindedly.

Like this she remained for a few silent minutes, until her ears caught on the faint padding of shoes, and she straightened up. There was a creaking as the store-room door opened, and Klaus slipped inside, carefully guiding the door back into place once he had done so.

'How long, Klaus?' Faith enquired, perfectly aware of his knowing she was there.

'About fifteen seconds.' He approximated, pressing himself to the wall beside the door-frame. Faith grinned at him, and stood in direct sight of the doorway, knife in hand.

As if it were choreographed, the sinewy figure of the second man soon burst into the room, and froze, regarding the 'solitary' red-haired hybrid unsurely.

'…are you alone?' he ventured after a small pause. Faith laughed in impish glee.

'No.' From behind the guard, Klaus raised a concrete breeze-block with both hands, and swung hard into the back of the man's head, as if he were receiving a fast-bowl in a game of cricket. Needless to say, the man went down like a sack of potatoes, and Klaus regarded his handiwork with appraisal. Faith rolled her eyes, feigning disappointment at her boyfriend's problem-solving skills.

'Couldn't you have just said hi?'

* * *

><p>Panting slightly as he rounded yet another corridor, Kaidan's worn trainers squeaked gratingly as once again they lost traction on the lino floor. Flailing his arms a little to regain balance, he grabbed the edge of the nearest doorway, and swung himself inside. He pulled the door shut, and put his back to it, exhaling profoundly. As he had soon discovered, Vindicta Inventories consisted mainly of warehousing, but was interspersed with the odd cold-storage room, presumably for the safe-keeping of foods or perishables of some sort. Also as he had recently found out, cold-storage rooms aren't very warm, so any time he'd hidden, his position was given away by the cloud-like puffs of his breath in the air, and yet again he'd had to flee from the woman that was incredibly good at tracking an uncoordinated demon with noisy footwear.<p>

He growled quietly, and punched a crate as he passed it, scouring his surroundings for a hiding place. He was in a kind of roofed builder's yard, with cement dust and bricks laying around the place like confetti at a wedding. The open walls let a faint breeze waft through, and the corners of his trenchcoat flapped slightly in the mild zephyr. He looked to the night outside, and wondered what it was Vixen was up to. Returning his gaze to the electrically-lit space under cover, he noticed an opportunity where a crate had been moved, creating a space behind almost perfectly-sized for someone evading capture. His copper eyes widened a little as he grinned broadly, before trotting over and lowering himself into the hole, one hand on either side, holding his weight up on the nearby boxes. He nestled into the space, and wriggled slightly as he felt unevenness under his foot. Quickly, his lack of comfort irritated him, so he shifted his weight and skimmed his hand over the dusty floor.

He frowned in surprise as his fingertips touched metal, and he wrapped his hand around the unfamiliar object. Raising it into the light, he clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. He was hoping for a knife or something interesting, but no, instead he'd found a pry-bar. It made sense in a builder's yard, but he couldn't help but deflate a little in the anti-climax. He tossed the object from hand to hand, cocking his head a little. It had a good weight to it, and the octagonal shape of its shaft made it easy to grip. He perked up a little; maybe it could have some use after all. He swung it in the space above the crate, and chuckled quietly as the hooked end of it cut through the air like it was some kind of low-budget axe. He'd hated not being able to defend himself, so maybe now was his chance to change things.

He was soon juddered from his thoughts, however, as the door to the warehouse opened complainingly, and the familiar footfalls of the female security guard approached, inexorably slowly. He lowered himself into his crevice, and stiffened, awaiting discovery.

As the steps grew closer, he took a deep breath, determined to not let his breathing betray his position. However, his still position, one leg crossed under him in a cross between a sit and a crouch, was a rather impractical one, and he soon felt the twinging need to reorganise his limbs as his left legs went numb from the knee down. He grimaced, and carefully lifted his right leg off the floor, and slid his left out from under it. Sadly, due to his left leg being numb and obscured by his upper half's shadow, he misjudged the orientation of his foot, and inhaled sharply through his teeth as the top of his left foot knocked into his right shin, sending it outwards and into the side of a crate with a loud, solid clunk.

Kaidan winced as he heard the guard turn on the spot, her gun cocking in the process. Knowing he'd ratted himself out, he slowly raised his head above the top of the crate. The woman was nowhere to be seen, and a sense of foreboding fell over him. Unable to rescind his plan, however, he levered himself out into the walkway between the lines of crates and boxes, and started walking. Anxiously, he scanned every crossroad, but saw and heard nothing. A nagging doubt in the back of his mind told him that she was probably following behind him, but every time he whirled around, he saw nothing.

After a few minutes of this, the still anonymous sensation in his gut started up again, twitching slightly as ire started to build in him. He tightened his grip on the pry-bar as he rounded yet another block of crates, and groaned under his breath as once more he was faced with nothing. He was sorely tempted to call out for his pursuer, eager to get this over and done with, but what little he bore of a sense of self-preservation quelled the words in his throat before they could be said, and the feeling inside of him flickered a little, sending sparks of incandescence fluttering throughout his limbs. His hands began to clam up a little, and he felt the pry-bar slip slightly in his grip.

Without warning, an understated whooshing noise, followed by an empty thump, sounded from behind Kaidan. He turned, and witnessed with shock the form of the female security guard, her sternum shattered and run through by the shaft of a long wooden arrow, knocked in white, with a single cock feather in pure black. The woman gurgled slightly, and a small clump of semi-clotted blood flopped from her mouth. Kaidan stared for a moment, before looking warily along the trajectory of the arrow, his copper eyes soon meeting those of opalescent pinky-purple.

'Vixen.' He greeted flatly, not entirely sure of how else he could have acknowledged her presence.

'Kaidan.' She reciprocated, nodding slightly and slinging her longbow over her shoulder. She walked over to the corpse, and gripped round her arrow's shaft near the body, and pulled it out with ease. She shook the entrails off it, and let it rest loosely, drying in her curled fingers as she turned to the dumbfounded demon.

'What?' Kaidan floundered for a moment.

'Uhh… you just shot someone.' Vixen put her empty hand on her hip, and shifted her weight onto one leg.

'Problem?' She raised an eyebrow. Kaidan shook his head.

'No, I just… didn't know you were there.' He ventured, a frown of mild bafflement on his face. Surely he should have heard at least one of them coming. He sighed to himself. Apparently not.

'Oh, sure.' She acknowledged, a tint of sarcasm coating her voice. Her arrow now dry, she returned it to her quiver, and looked her companion over for injuries. She saw none, but was a little concerned by what his right hand.

'Um, Kaidan, are you alright?'

'Huh?'

'Your hand.' She pointed to it, and Kaidan raised it to his face. It still held the crowbar, as expected, though the implement was rather different to how it should have been. It was now gradually taking on a 90-degree angle, and the center of it was glowing with a white heat. Kaidan flattened his palm, and a thin layer of skin still stuck to the pry-bar, peeling away from his hand as he did so. He looked at it confusedly.

'I don't know why it's doing that.' He said tonelessly. Vixen shrugged dismissively.

'Must be a full-blood thing. You need to learn to keep a lid on that.' Kaidan nodded solemnly, and followed after the white-with-rainbow-highlights-haired girl as she turned abruptly, and trotted for the door, leaving the figure of the guard still propped up against a stack of crates.

* * *

><p>For Aden, keeping a lid on things was the binary opposite of her troubles. Shortly after she'd stolen away into the darkness, she'd circled back on the man following her, well and truly catching him off-guard as she'd sprung from a corner and incapacitated him with a well-aimed sword hilt, dragging him into one of the storage rooms to pursue her own line of enquiry.<p>

Trevor blinked a few times, blearily. Slowly gaining focus, he tuned in to the amber irises burning into his, and recoiled. He went to yell, but a bony hand clamped over his mouth, making him instead whimper pathetically at the lone girl who had managed to more than handle him. The edge of her mouth curled into a sardonic grin.

'Hello, Trevor. Ready for a little interview?' The grey-haired guard gulped, and flexed his fingers against their rope restraints. Aden chuckled a little, and put a hand over his wrist, making it impossible to move at all. He froze.

'I'll take that as a yes.' Relenting, she backed away and straightened up, pulling a thick, straight-bladed knife from her belt and turning it fondly in her hand. Her eyes flicked down the one sharpened side, and to the guard's sweating face.

'So, we can start by you telling me why your CEO is so fond of hybrids.' Aden stared at Trevor, encouraging him to fill in the blanks of her expression. After licking his dry lips, he spoke.

'Mr Haines does not endorse discrimination against any creature, extreme minority or no.' Aden scoffed, and tossed the knife up and down.

'Oh, so you do know what hybrids are? And here I thought they were shielded from the public.' Trevor's eyes widened, and he pushed himself back further into his chair. Aden began to approach.

'So, _Trevor_, why would your CEO run a company that knew of the existence of a seemingly non-existent racial group? What does it do with them?' Before he could try and talk his way out of this one, Trevor was cut off by a voice from across the room.

'He probably doesn't know, Aden.' The addressed hybrid whirled around, and was faced by her bow-wielding friend. Beside her was Kaidan, who was still in the process of climbing through a previously-shattered window. When he saw the two of them being regarded with an questioning glare by Aden, he gave her a small wave, and jerked his thumb at the window he was half-through.

'Hey, Aden. They really need to start fixing the windows in this place, don't you think?' As he pulled himself entirely into the room, the raven-haired girl took a few steps towards him and Vixen, her head cocked slightly.

'You two, you're just in time. We were just about to discuss the ulterior motives of Trevor's employer, weren't we?' she called over her shoulder. Trevor gawped at Vixen entreatingly, and she rolled her eyes, taking a step forward.

'Well, that sounds interesting. But surely, Aden, discussions don't usually involve rope?' The fire-eyed hybrid frowned.

'Your point?'

'I thought we were supposed to be making a good impression.' Behind Vixen, Kaidan raised an eyebrow.

'Eh? You were the one who just-'

'Kaidan…' She warned. He fell silent.

'Thank you.' Aden sighed, and returned her attention to her quarry.

'As I was saying, what does this Mr Haines intend to do with the information he has on hybrids?' she pressed, leaning forwards and cowering over the seated man. When Trevor said nothing, she once again raised the knife into prominent view.

'Oh well,' she sing-songed, 'I guess Bahadir will have to have some fun after all…' Almost immediately, Trevor changed tune.

'M-Mr Haines' business is storing things. This applies to information as well as goods. I-I'm sorry, I don't know any more than that.' He stammered, like a nervous child reciting their lines for a school play. Aden brought a hand to her chin, feigning deep thought.

'Well, it's certainly odd that he would provide his employees with this information, no?' she prodded, a hint of venom covering her words. Unable to answer, Trevor opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, like a fish. Clearly amused by this, Vixen chuckled a little as Trevor's dismay.

'Come on Addy, be fair. At least let him stand up.' Aden rolled her eyes, and approached the uneasy guard. Proficiently, she flicked Bahadir's sharpened edge under his rope bindings, freeing his wrists in one deft cut. She backed off a little, and shakily, Trevor stood, rubbing his forearms.

'There,' Aden stated, 'You're up. Now answer my question.' Vixen sighed.

'Like I said before, Aden, he probably doesn't know. He's just a grunt, after all.' Aden scowled in rebuke at her friend.

'If he doesn't need to know why Vindicta keeps information on us, why would he know that they do in the first place?' Kaidan held a hand up, nodding.

'Actually, she does have a point there.' Vixen waved him into silence.

'Maybe he wasn't supposed to find out, but anyway, you're missing the point – we're here for information. We don't need to tick off someone who potentially could be our ally in future.

'If he was our ally, why hasn't he told us before?! If he wasn't contriving some plot or hiding something, wouldn't he have involved us sooner?' Vixen paused for a moment, Aden's paranoia beginning to hit home. Electing to follow diplomacy for once, however, she dismissed the thought for now.

'You know how dangerous it is to be one of us, Aden. It might well be safer for society as a whole if hybrids thought they were the only ones of their kind, in case they start another Insurrection or something. This Cyrus Haines is a human, so he'd be more concerned for the majority – his species – than us as individuals; you know that. So why can't we try to not use excessive force on this one?' Aden growled indignantly, but didn't respond. Vixen made a good point. Seeing this as a viable opportunity to try and interject, Trevor held a quivering hand up, reasoning that mimicking the boy he assumed to be their friend's action would encourage friendliness towards him. He cleared his throat quietly, and pointed at Vixen.

'I, uhh… I think we should go along with the hot lady's idea.' In an instant, Vixen's demeanour morphed from accommodating mediation to seething ire, and she unhooked her bow from her shoulder, knocked an arrow in it, and trained the head squarely between Trevor's legs in one fluid motion.

'Give me an excuse, scumbag.' Aden smirked, relieved that Vixen was back to normal.

Trevor wet himself. Kaidan winced, and covered his eyes.

'…that's just nasty.'

'Indeed it is, young master Sawyer.' As if from no definable source, a refined, almost thespian voice, one that held the air of ease in public address, filtered clearly through what must have been a speaker system in the storage room's ceiling. The two hybrids and their addressed companion whirled to face the door as it swung open, and was passed through by the other male guard from earlier, accompanied by half a dozen or so of his previously-absent colleagues, a man none of the non-humans in the room had seen before, and finally, Faith and Klaus, who appeared unharmed. The burly hybrid let the door swing to behind him.

The man no-one recognised was almost comically short, but the stern solidarity behind his hazel eyes greatly discouraged criticism, and betrayed his authority. He wore a navy-blue pinstripe suit that fitted as if his tailor was Addrammelech himself, and he was undoubtedly the one who'd spoken a moment earlier. He approached Aden, and smiled warmly, revealing a row of immaculate teeth.

'Don't fret, my dear, I assure you, my company holds no grudge towards your kind.' Aden took a preparatory step back.

'You were listening to us.' The middle-aged man laughed in good-humour.

'Yes, Miss Ravenkey, I was. But that is because I was outside the door.' Aden scrutinised the man's features for a moment, before removing her hands from their subconsciously-found placing at the hilts of her swords. The man's smile widened, and he spread his arms in greeting, this time addressing Kaidan and Vixen, too, whose bow was still trained on Trevor's crotch.

'My name is Cyrus Haines. Welcome to Vindicta.' Vixen didn't bat an eyelid.

'Nice welcome, pal.' Haines sighed, the humour still in his eyes, and cast his gaze to his humiliated employee, who was trying to cover the growing wet patch and remain motionless at the same time.

'You can leave now, Wainwright.' Thankfully, Trevor nodded eagerly at his boss, before hastily vanishing out the store-room door, eliciting a chuckle from Klaus as he passed. Her target now absent, Vixen lowered her bow, loosening the string. She stared attentively at Haines, studying his every motion and mannerism like he was some kind of alien insect. Unfazed, Haines now addressed Kaidan once more, who'd been watching the proceedings with porous attention.

'Mr Sawyer, I hear you require some information from me?' Kaidan frowned for a moment, but was reassured by a curt nod from Faith.

'I do.'

'Well then, young master, I shall tell you all you need to know. First, however-' he was interrupted by a sarcastic Vixen blowing a lock of her fringe out of her eye.

'There's always a catch with you humans. No such thing as a free lunch.' Once she had finished musing, Cyrus cleared his throat, and began again.

'First, however, I advise you get some rest. Trevor and his colleagues were instructed to subdue intruders at any cost, so I imagine you're rather tired.' Kaidan smirked confidently.

'Actually, they're not as tough as they look. I'll be fine, thanks. Just tell me what I need to know, and I'll be on my way.'

'Oh, no, Mr Sawyer, I insist. It's always a pleasure of mine to put a roof over my friends' heads, whether they be new faces or not.' Kaidan's reply was made for him.

'Roof over your _friends'_ heads? You don't even know us!' Aden expostulated, slapping her hands to her sides like the noise by the action was a punctuation mark at the end of her statement. Cyrus turned his vehement gaze to hers.

'That may or may not be the case, Miss Ravenkey.' Aden's skin bristled, and she growled under her breath. 'Either way, I can provide you with food and nourishment and shelter before telling you what you want to know tomorrow morning. It's dark outside, and the streets in these parts are dangerous at night. Please, it would put my mind at rest.' From near the door, Faith stepped forward, and looked intently at both Vixen and Aden, knowing that both of them held their own doubts.

'Everyone, there's no need to be suspicious. Cyrus is a friend, and he means what he says. Besides, it's gonna take ages to walk back to our places, and Kaidan doesn't even have one of his own to go back to.' The aforementioned demon shifted awkwardly, like a child pointed out in class for an unusual pair of glasses, 'I say we stay here tonight.' She concluded, and her boyfriend nodded in assesntion.

Reluctantly, Aden turned to Kaidan, and shrugged.

'Looks like your decision's been made for you.'

* * *

><p>The rain had started up again, and was drumming noisily on the roof of the repurposed shed-like structure in which the party slept. After having their doubts placated by being fed a surprisingly poison-free dinner, the group was heartily encouraged to get some rest in the adjacent facilities provided, and they did so thankfully. Well, most of them. Sitting with a groan and rubbing his eyes, Kaidan awoke for the tenth time that night, once more uncomfortable in the stiff cotton bed-sheets on the similarly-stiff wooden bunk. Flinging the covers off, Kaidan swung round till his legs hung off into the middle of the room, and rubbed his right shin wearily. The join between metal and leg was prone to irritation, particularly during clammy weather like this. He rolled his trouser-leg up, and massaged his kneecap with his finger-ends.<p>

'Well, that's a surprise.' Across the room from Kaidan, a faint glimmer of warm brown illuminated the darkness.

'Klaus.' Kaidan said flatly, unsure of where Klaus was going to take his most recent discovery.

'What happened to you, Kade?' The concern route? Interesting. The young demon pulled his leg up onto his lap, and carefully loosened the rivets holding the metal plating in situ. Once its cladding was removed, he again lowered his leg into the open air, and Klaus gasped at the sight of bare bone from foot to knee.

'Shit, Kaidan – how did you do that?!' Klaus whisper-yelled, unable to keep a kind of pained sympathy from his voice. Kaidan regarded his friend, then his leg, and took a breath.

'D'you want the long version or the short one?' Klaus grinned in the darkness, pleased that the young demon was willing to open up so easily.

'I've got all night.'

_The small boy ran fearfully through the alley, stumbling as the cracks in the pavement did their best to trip him up. He choked back anguished sobs as he tore past an open door, through which arguing could be heard. Without even meaning to, he caught a few disconnected words as he shot past._

_'-you know how I feel about that! I-' just as things got interesting, the words were out of earshot, and the wide-eyed child realised that, in concentrating on the argument, he'd lead himself into a dead-end. He panted, and gasped as he heard the ringing echo of a plethora of hard-soled shoes approaching at a fast run. Bending over to grasp his knees in exhaustion, the boy looked up, as if to ask the black sky to help him. No reassurance came, but he did catch the outline of a gutter in the weak moonlight that peeked through the foreboding cloud above._

_In that instant, an idea came to him, and he bolted to the vertical pipe, and grasped it, his tiny fingers only reaching three-quarters of the way around its breadth. Willing his fingers to hold tight, he jumped, bringing his feet up by a foot or two, using their insoles to gain traction on the pole. Unfortunately, due to his recently-gained fatigue, he gained little grip, and instead scraped his bare shins across the brick wall against which the gutter was fastened, extracting a choked yell of pain from his throat. There he hung for a few moments until the stinging in his legs had subsided enough for him to try again, and, this time, he braced off of the brickwork, walking up the wall till his feet were level with his hands. Then, with a grunt of effort, he quickly slid his hands up the pipe, giving him the opportunity to climb further upwards._

_Just as he'd found his momentum, and had regained the courage to think that things might be going well, a sharp impact on his left shoulder blade indicated that that was no longer the case. He jolted in shock, and gulped. From behind and below, an all-too-familiar voice made its presence known._

_'Hey, runt!' He heard the quiet, fleshy slapping noise as a wet stone was tossed from hand to hand, and felt the thump as it flew into his back, this time nearer his neck and head._

_The boy had been getting somewhere. Just as he gets somewhere, they show up. The interruptions were unkind, unnecessary, and unwarranted. A small, delicate flower of anger budded up in the boy's guts, and he felt the strain of the petals against its womb. Why are they doing this? There's no point!_

_'You listening, punk? This is our turf!'_

_Another stone hit him, this time directly in the back of his skull. The blow rattled through his mind, and a tear formed on the edge of the bud. Slowly, but surely, it split, revealing an elaborate, multi-layered flower of the deepest fire, heating him up from inside. Silence ruled all else in the boy's head. But the silence paid heed to the flames, and fed them, and they grew, blossoming, spreading throughout his limbs, making him buzz._

_'Hey!' The voice cut through the boy's precious silence. The fire snapped, and sheared into a myriad of searing pieces, egged on by the buzzing in his head. The sensation vibrated through the boy, and he shut his eyes, concentrating on it. Faintly, he was aware of his body beginning to quiver, as if he was shaking with some pent-up power. The voice laughed._

_'Aww, you're not crying, are you, runt?' its singsong tone was laced with cold venom, and echoed by a chorus of chuckling from other chilled voices surrounding it. Slowly, the boy exhaled, and opened his eyes again. None of them could see that they were brighter than before, almost as if they had ignited. The voice lost its patience._

_'HEY!' it again called, this time closer as its owner strode up to the boy, still clinging to the gutter, and grasped his right ankle in a cold, tight grip, 'I'm talking to you!' The feeling of damp, icy skin on his made the flower's shards heat up inside him, and gradually melt into a seething, writhing mass of liquid anger that sank to where the voice had made contact, soaking towards the surface._

_The first thing the boy noticed was a distant, strangled, piercing scream and a faint hissing noise. He thought it was most likely the effect of the ire boiling in him, but little did he know how literal it was. The voice's owner, now decidedly less confident than before, tried to pull his hand away, but to no avail, as, like plastic, the molten skin had adhered to its heat source, and refused to lose contact, thus exacerbating its heating, and therefore, adherence._

_The voice's owner tried screaming again, and was answered by a sadistic chuckle from the boy whose leg he had grasped. As realisation dawned in the young lad that his leg was, in fact, actually melting, growing into a rippling mass of lava-like flesh, he couldn't help but delight in the fact that this was exactly what he was hoping for. He was thawing their ice, and melting his own reason in the process. It's not like he had a purpose anyway, he had no idea where he came from, what he was meant to do while he was here, and certainly not where he was going. Why try and maintain a reason you do not have?_

_As the anger exhausted its fuel, and finally bit into flame-exposed bone, the boy's amusement subsided. The chill wind licked around his bare shin, and the painful sensation shot to his core. He felt… exposed, somehow more so than merely having no flesh. Like… like he could be seen for what he really was. Empty. Cold. Metallic._

_Wrong._

_His grip on the gutter loosened, and he slid to the ground, his legs buckling as they hit the floor. The voice's owner whimpered as his arm followed suit, and the still-tacky skin on the remains of his hand finally broke contact with the boy's shin, allowing him to sit back, making a pained moaning noise and he held the wrecked article in his lap, which was steaming slightly._

_The boy was unaware of his ex-assailant's misfortune. He was gazing with a kind of fascinated bitterness at the singed bone that was all that was left of the bottom half of his right leg, his copper eyes narrowing as he scrutinised the join between burnt flesh and thin air, a slight incline between blackened muscles, cauterised blood vessels and cold, cold reality. What concerned him most was the fact that his leg was still mobile, even though there were most definitely no tendons to manoeuvre it. To test the extent to which this was true, he wriggled his toes._

_To his awestruck disgust, a slight squeak broke from his toe bones as they ground against each other, the cartilage having been vaporised a few moments before, and slowly, juddering, they creaked into a curled position, before relaxing, and straightening again._

_For the first time in living memory, the boy was thanking the powers that be for not having eaten for the past two days. Vomit, in its acidity, made him shudder at the prospect of it coming into contact with bare bone. He didn't know for sure, but he imagined that it'd hurt. But, then again, logic hadn't exactly been a recurring theme in the last few minutes, so it would probably have no consequence. Even so, he didn't like throwing up. Abandoning his thoughts, he tried standing up. Proving his earlier observation that logic was no longer relevant, it worked, first time. A small giggle broke from his heat-desiccated throat. This could have some novelty._


End file.
